ram question need help

IF you would please edit your post to remove all the specs we can find that info just by knowing the Dell computer model and operating system.

The manual is correct in that you should not mix different types of memory. So since you will have two different types you will get post errors with all the ram installed. You can mix differnt speeds of ram like 400 and 533 which will result in all the memory running at the slowest speed but to mix the different types such as DDR and SDRAM and ECC and Non ECC will cause havoc with the system

i was just wondering u said to never mix diffrent types of ram like ddr with sdram but the chip says its both ddr2 sdram and couldnt help but notice urs said ur using ddr2 sdram. as far as ecc and nonecc they both have the excact same amount of chips on the chips so i guess there bothe the same either eec or or non ecc which ever they are (8 big chips on one side of ram and another little one in the center) i was told non ecc had one amount of chips that could be divisiable by 3 and the ecc was even amount of chips a stick. not sure though if thats how u tell non ecc form ecc. either way some more of ur info would help ty.

ps i took specs off for u i have a dell precision 370 workstation big tower not mini

If both are DDR2 then that part is fine. the ecc and non ecc is the biggie. While the ram may look the same it is in fact totally different in how it reacts with teh bios of the system ECC is error code correctin ram and the other is non error code correcting. There is on the stick a program to controll the ram and how the system will address and access the ram. This code would be different between the ecc an non ecc. when the system is first booted and the bios is in controll it looks at all the hardware to make sure there are not conflicts. If you were to mix the ram when it came time to look at teh ram it would not know what ram was installed as one set would say we have ecc and the other would say it does not. The bios would most likely interpert this as bad ram and fault and give error beeps and halt the system from booting.

So do not go by how a stick looks.

have corrected previous post the ram that came with the unit is DDR2 400mhz non ecc ram.

never mind i know the samsung is now DDR2 ram it appears to be non ecc ram

so i know there not a mix of ecc and non ecc but how do i tell if they are both ddr2 one says ddr2 sdram, so i know it is ddr2 but the other says (samsung 512mb 2Rx8 pc2 and another line that says kr m378t6453fgo-cccds 0444)dont know if that helps starting to get lost in all this chip confusion didnt know it was that complicated lol thank u so much for taking ur time to help me ill make this the last question

possibly are the newer ones from Dell?

ok ddr2 and its non ecc , so guess the real question is can i use the non ecc right?

You are welcome.

ty u were amazing help wish there was more like u ty again